Architect Barbie has a whole team of experts vying to design her Dream House—anyone from the American Institute of Architects who wants to enter the AIA's new competition, which kicks off today at the AIA 2011 National Convention in New Orleans. The winning design will be voted on by the public and announced in August. — curbed.com
The John Lautner Foundation is pleased to present the John Lautner Turns 100 series this July 16-November 13, 2011. In celebration of what would have been John Lautner’s 100th birthday on July 16, 2011, the series will showcase Lautner’s extraordinary body of work while informing and inspiring the public about the importance of preserving it. — johnlautner.org
"People paid a lot of attention to these buildings because they cost too much money - money that should have been used where it was needed most," said resident Xu Linli as she walked home from work past the controversial office complex. — BBC News
In 2004, French architect Paul Andreu - who designed Beijing's stunning egg-shaped national theatre, won the right to design a new office complex for Chengdu government officials. Two months after the move began, the Sichuan earthquake, whose epicentre was just north of Chengdu, left... View full entry
"To quote the unfortunate architect who claims to have been hired to design the mansion, who identifies himself as Bill - "On paper it was beautiful; a large entry court around a two story water feature, Italianate with Etruscan entablatures and friezes from the 13th Century Portuguese... View full entry
Nearly half a century after Habitat 67, I worked five days a week in a cubicle in Safdie's latest high-profile creation, the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. And as I stared at a computer screen in my small slice of Safdie-dom, I wondered: What good has visionary architecture ever done for working plebes? — theawl.com
Leah Caldwell discusses the perspective of an office worker in a building designed by a "starchitect". View full entry
Zaha Hadid has made the Sunday Times Rich List for the first time, with her personal wealth estimated at £37 million.
Hadid features in the extended list of the UK’s 2,000 wealthiest people, due to be published in full later this month. The threshold for entering the top 1000 is £70 million.
— bdonline.co.uk
Previously discussed: Zaha Hadid to make 100 staff redundant View full entry
Junaid Younis, Modern Associates principal told Mr. Buncombe that his father, Mohammad, made the drawing,
“Lots of people come to us,” Younis said. “We are more interested in making money rather than the individual.”
— International Business Times
Architecture rarely goes viral on the Internet, but a video of Toyo Ito's Mediatheque in Sendai taken at the height of the Japanese earthquake has had an extraordinary run as an eyewitness and vertigo-inducing account of what it was like to be inside a building during the magnitude-9.0 earthquake that struck Japan on March 11. — Ada Louise Huxtable, WSJ.com
Click here to view the video, previously reported and discussed on Archinect. View full entry
“We wanted … for the work to speak for itself,” says Mr. Kuwabara, who won the 2006 RAIC Gold Medal, awarded for a significant and lasting contribution to Canadian architecture. For the group, every project matter, he says. “A lot of architects do some kind of work just to keep the cash flowing,” says Mr. Kuwabara. “They’re always waiting for the next big project where they’re going to do exactly what they want. [But] it never happens.” — The Globe and Mail
Google has hired Ingenhoven Architects, a German firm that specializes in sustainable architecture and has completed award-winning green designs from Sydney to Stuttgart, to develop plans for what could total nearly 600,000 square feet of space. Google currently owns or leases about 4.3 million square feet of space in Mountain View, according to its securities filings. — mercurynews.com
News In our latest In Focus we talk to English photographer Tim Pike. To our question What is your goal when capturing buildings in photographs? Tom responded "That would vary. If it is entirely at my discretion, I tend to want to almost 'deconstruct' the building to an essence that is summed up... View full entry
When architect Cesar Pelli built his aka 'Blue Whale' Pacific Design Center in 1975, the West Coast officially declared it was going to be the center of the decorating universe. Almost forty years later, and with the addition of green and red compartments, that primary-shaped colorful dream is... View full entry
Even in the most turbulent eras, intelligence and clarity sometimes win out over chaos, a fact evident in the work of the Engineers and Architects Association of Liberec (SIAL), a small but vitally important architecture studio that opened under communism. — The Prague Post
Jacques Herzog: I don't believe in books on architecture; they're bound to fail and disappear even sooner than architecture...which can last for hundreds of years [before disappearing]. Not that I don't respect people who write books. — Harvard GSD (Lian)
BIG, Martha Schwartz Landscape, Buro Happold, Speirs & Major, Lutzenberger & Lutzenberger, and Global Cultural Asset Management were today announced as the winning team of the international design competition for a new 27,000 m2 cultural complex in Albania, consisting of a Mosque, an Islamic Center, and a Museum of Religious Harmony. — bustler.net
